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Tuesday, February 12, 2013

From Oct.

We had another busy weekend. Even for a three day weekend we kept it pretty full.
We got in soccer, times with grandma's, hikes, a carnival and some log cabin hunting.

This first one is a very old cabin that has been lovingly restored and remodeled.
I first came across this one about six years ago when I was out on one of my expeditions before daughter came along.
I had stopped and asked the owner of the farm if I could go down and take some pictures of this old log home.

I told him I had worked on a few and always loved finding ones I had not seen before.
He said sure, and if I had any ideas on how to go about fixing it up to let him know.
He was hoping I could do the work if I was interested.
I looked at the place, a very fine 125 plus year old cabin, that was probably the original farm house for the valley it was sitting in.
As with most cabins, all the logs were in pretty good shape except the ones near the bottom.
Usually these old homes were built on very little foundation with the expectation that they were, hopefully, going to be temporary till a better house could be afforded and built. This usually allowed for water and snow to rot out the bottom logs after many years. Even if they were put up on some rocks, with no foundation down to frost line, the rocks would eventually sink in the soil.
And this is what had happened to this one. The base logs were rotted away for the most part.
It was a fine old two-crib building with a dog-trot between the two cabins.
I told him I was sorry that I could not do the work and suggested that however he was going to restore it, one of the first things he needed to do was raise the whole building to get up off the ground and replace the bottom logs.
I will never know if he took my advice or whether the men who did the work came up with that on their own, but they definetly fixed the foundation.
And although my critical eye finds lots of things I don't like with this restoration, who ever did the work did an excellent job. And the faults I find are more in appearance than in workmanship.

The view from the front, which is the first two pictures, is the most appealing. They have leveled up all the logs and placed them on a nice foundation, which now includes a basement.
If it is not located where the original foundation sat, it is real close.
The dog-trot has been elegantly closed in to make more living space between the two cabins and a nice front door has been added with a covered porch.

Once you go around the back the cabin becomes very interesting.
At one time really cool, and at the same time a little overbearing for the sturcture.
An additional room has been added with either logs from another cabin or newer logs. And the logs, if they are new, have been well worked by someone who knew what they were doing.
You can tell by the difference in the thickness of the logs between the front two rooms and the addition that they are not of the same time period.
(Count how many logs make a wall.)
Although the three porches would make for great entertainment, I don't like the shape of the roof or the fact that, from the back, the addition overpowers the structure.
The only other complaint I have is that the stones used in the porches, pillars and entrance way do not match the foundation, nor are they of a type found in the area, nor put down like stone would have been on log home construction. They remind one more of something that would be done out west.
Over all I would give the restoration and remodeling a 98, for the only flaws are, to me historical and visual.
If it were given to me someday as a second home,. . . I would even bring it up.
I will make it a goal to find the pictures from a few years ago to do a before and after show.

Help Home Hunter showing the difference. between the foundation stone and pillar/fireplace stones.

Showing off the front door.

Love the door, mildly dislike the stone.

More to my liking.

This fine restoration is now a museum in Marthasville Mo., very much a part of Daniel Boone's old stomping grounds.

This is more of a restoration than a remodeling.
Six over six windows have been included.
In the old days, glass was hard to form in big sheets, so smaller pains would be made and fitted into frames. Six over six was the most common.
The Dog-trot has been very nicely framed and stoned to make more interior living space.
More many years, probably, the dog-trot would have been lift open to provide a shade area around the house to do household chores or to sit or sleep in the summer. And to give it it's name, it is where the family dog would hang out.

The logs have a wonderful brown color, like newly cut logs.
Logs in real time would only stay brown for a short time.
Sun light would eventually turn theme grey.
Note how the stone work is more typical of what would be found in Missouri.
The white squares in the logs above the windows would be where the upper story floor beams would be in the logs.
This would be called 'a story and a half dogtrot cabin'.
The stairs going up would be in the dog-trot section.

Another cabin has been placed at one end.
Note how the mortar chinking is brown, where in the first cabin discussed on this page the mortar chinking is very white.
Although now made out of cement, chinking would originally be made out of mud, with straw or horse hair mixed in to provide a binding.
It would probably have been patch or redone several time till finally cement was used.
Many restorations will use colored cement now a days to replicate mud.